Google Pixel Watch 4 hands-on review | Infinium-tech
The Pixel Watch 4 is Google’s latest weapon in the premium smartwatch market. As a successor to last year’s Pixel Watch 3, the new model may not look all that different on the surface. But beneath that domed exterior are a number of improvements, including a new display, an updated chipset, longer battery life with faster charging, better fitness tracking, and Google’s latest Wear OS software with Material 3 expressive design.
Starting at $349 for the 41mm version, the Pixel Watch 4 is ready to claim the title of best Android smartwatch on the market. But is it any good? Let’s find out.
design
The Pixel Watch 4 has a similar design to its predecessor. However, it’s a pretty cool design, so it’s hard to complain. Domed glass that is gently embossed in the middle and wrapped around the edges still looks unique and beautiful. The rest of the body of the watch is made of aluminum, which can be polished or matte depending on the color.
This watch comes in 41mm and 45mm sizes, I have the former here. The watch is also quite wide, so it doesn’t stick to your wrist too much. It’s also very light and doesn’t feel like you’re wearing anything. There is a rotating crown on the side of the watch, as well as a side button, but I found them a little difficult to use due to their size and also required a lot of effort to press.
The Pixel Watch uses a proprietary connector to connect wrist straps. If you’re attempting to forego compatibility by not using standard lugs, you’d at least hope that the attachment mechanism would be easy to use. But while the Pixel Watch 4 mechanism is simple enough in theory, in practice, I found it frustrating to remove or attach the strap because of how small the button is that needs to be pressed to release the strap. The fluoroelastomer strap that comes by default is nice enough, but third-party options will be limited compared to some other popular smartwatches.
The overall build quality and finish of the watch is excellent; However, the display only uses Corning Gorilla Glass 5 instead of sapphire crystal. This means it won’t be as durable, and you should be careful about hitting the glass with things, especially other people’s watches. This is also made difficult by the fact that most of the watch’s exterior is only glass, making it an easy target.
Display
Talking about the display, Pixel Watch 4 has an AMOLED LTPO display with 320 PPI, DCI-P3 color and peak brightness of up to 3000 nits. The display can go down to 1 nit and has a refresh rate of 1-60Hz.
Google calls it the Actua 360 display because it’s a curved panel that follows the curves of the domed glass. This means that it rises slightly in the middle and spreads out at the edges. This is one of the bigger and more noticeable differences between the Pixel Watch 4 and Pixel Watch 3, as the rear panel was neither curved nor as large. Google says that despite the watch being the same size, this display has 10% more area. It’s also brighter, as the Pixel Watch 3’s display only went up to 2000 nits peak brightness.
The display of Pixel Watch 4 is excellent. It gets quite bright outdoors in sunlight, and colors look pleasing without being oversaturated. The domed glass distorts the image a bit, something you don’t notice at first, but after using this watch for a while, every other smartwatch’s display starts to look concave in comparison. The panels being attached to the glass and following its curves make everything look like it is floating above the watch in a big bubble that is held together by surface tension. It’s a great design choice that makes this series of watches stand out from the crowd, and the new display makes it better than any Pixel Watch before.
However, there is one problem, which is that the curved display is glare city. Glass is always going to catch sporadic reflections, which can sometimes affect functionality. Many of the more complex watch faces have complications right around the perimeter of the glass, right where you’d typically find light reflections. This makes it impossible to see those complications without adjusting your wrist. How bothered you are by this will really depend on the watch you’re using.
The Pixel Watch 4 has an always-on display mode, and it’s enabled by default. You’ll want to keep this enabled because the watch takes a long time for the screen to turn on after you lift or turn your wrist. It’s only about a second or two, but it feels like an eternity when you want to see the time instantly, which is why you wear a watch in the first place.
Software and performance
Pixel Watch 4 runs on the latest Wear OS 6.0 out of the box. The software on the Pixel Watch 4 is simple, powerful, and looks right at home. It adopts a fully curved display instead of trying to display a square image inside a round hole, with all fonts and buttons arched to match the size of the screen, and UI elements shrinking as you go up and down the edges of the screen to enhance the domed look of the display.
However, Google’s watch face design is a bit puzzling. There are a lot of them, and there’s no shortage of incredible color combinations to customize them with, but I’d have a hard time calling any of them beautiful. Some of them try to mimic actual watch faces, as many smartwatch watch faces do, but with Google’s new pastel color schemes and the same default Wear OS font on all of them, that feels weird. Many people are too busy looking at too many complexities and intricate details. Thankfully, this is Android, so if you don’t like something available here you can get different ones from the Play Store.
wear os
I tested the watch with both the Pixel 10 Pro XL and the OnePlus 15 and it worked fine with both. I initially paired it with a Pixel, and transferring it to the OnePlus using the Transfer Watch function was seamless.
pixel watch app
Unfortunately, to get the most out of this watch you’ll have to install not one but two apps. The Pixel Watch app is mandatory for setting up the device, and it handles basic settings, watch faces, etc. However, it doesn’t handle any fitness content, and Google requires you to install the Fitbit app for it. Why the company can’t handle all the functionalities in one app is beyond me.
The new Qualcomm Snapdragon W5 Gen 2 has good performance but is basically unchanged from the previous version as all the processing bits are the same. There will be a slight lag in the watch when you try to use it immediately after starting it, but after it has been running for some time, the performance settles down and becomes consistent.
default watch faces
The haptics on the Pixel Watch 4 also work well, and you get strong and precise taps from the watch, even for things like rotating the crown. The speaker and microphone also work well.
Health and fitness tracking
The Pixel Watch 4 can track a wide range of health and fitness parameters thanks to its large number of sensors. The watch can track your heart rate, blood oxygen saturation and skin temperature. The watch can take your ECG as well as check for signs of arrhythmia. This is on top of basic things like step counting, sleep, and stress tracking.
All of this is accessed through the Fitbit app on the watch or phone. If you don’t install the app on the phone, the watch will still track data, but it will only be accessible in a limited way on the watch app.
fitbit app
This is not a full review of the watch, so there is no comparison of the health and fitness features with proper medical-grade devices. However, I made a basic comparison with other devices I had at the time of testing.
Starting with step tracking, I found the Pixel Watch 4 to be a little generous in calculating how many steps as well as total distance when not using GPS. Compared to the OnePlus Watch 2, the Pixel Watch 4 always has extra steps and distance calculated. After coming home from a walk, the total distance I covered often felt a bit higher than it should have been, but I didn’t have any other devices to compare. It feels like when the GPS is not in use, and you are in moving vehicles, the watch produces higher numbers than you actually are.
Things were better in heart rate monitoring and blood oxygen saturation tests. The Pixel Watch 4 matches the readings of the OnePlus Watch 2 and the blood oxygen saturation testing machine for saturation results. It matches both of those, as well as the AirPods Pro 3, for heart rate monitoring, which have roughly equal numbers.
tracking data
Sleep tracking is hard to test, but the results seem to be on par with my experience on the nights I was tracking.
GPS performance on the Pixel Watch 4 is very good. Satellite Lock is extremely fast with a paired smartphone, but it’s still noticeably faster when not paired with a phone and relying solely on a satellite connection to get the lock.
battery life
Google claims that the Pixel Watch 4’s battery life has been improved by a combination of a larger battery, more efficient software and hardware. For the 41mm version tested here, the company claims 30 hours of battery life.
In my use, I found that I could use the watch for up to two days if I didn’t use GPS extensively. This is with all the other features, like the always-on display, continuous heart rate tracking, sleep tracking, and SpO2 tracking enabled (which they are on by default). However, if I spend a few hours using the GPS, I’ll need to charge it at the end of the day, as the watch will shut down halfway through the next day.
At times like these, one is reminded of the clever dual-mode functionality of OnePlus watches, which feature a secondary low-power chip and OS that can extend the watch’s battery life by more than a week while retaining full activity tracking capabilities. The Pixel Watch 4 has no such mode, so you’re burning power for a full Android smartwatch all the time, even if you don’t use any apps on the watch.
The good thing is that the watch charges very quickly. On the 41mm version, you can reach 50% charge in about 15 minutes and 80% in about 25 minutes, while a full charge takes about 45 minutes. Even if you forget to charge it overnight, you can set it to charge right before you leave home and still charge all day.
The charger that comes with the Pixel Watch 4 is a new proprietary unit that is not compatible with previous generation Pixel Watch models. It’s a relatively simple design that’s easy to mount the watch on, and if the other end isn’t plugged into anything, the watch will warn you about it. The watch goes sideways into bedside mode while it’s on the charger, and when it’s fully charged, you get a notification on your phone.
conclusion
Pixel Watch 4 is a great smartwatch. It has a beautiful design that, despite being similar to its predecessors, still stands out from the crowd and grabs attention. Like most workout and activity tracking features, the software also looks and works really well. Battery life isn’t great in general, but good for such a small and light performance watch.
Overall, the Pixel Watch 4 is highly recommended for those looking for a premium smartwatch for their Android smartphone.
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